Since the drive is 6 years old it may be PATA or SATA 1. It might be
difficult to locate such a drive since technology has already moved on
to SATA 3. There are SATA 2 drives that can throttle back to SATA 1
rates but they are also getting hard to find. I was searching for one
for a friend several days ago and the only thing I could find was a 320
GB refurbished Hitachi drive. The following is from my note to him of
the other day
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I've been having difficulty finding a drive which is SATA 1 (1.5 Gbps)
compatible. Current drives on the market are SATA II (3Gps) or SATA III
(6Gbps). I thought the faster drives would throttle back on detecting
an SATA 1 controller but compatibility seems to be a mixed bag. I
couldn't find any claims of 1.5Gbps compatibility in the mix of
currently available SATA II/III drives.
I eventually had to resort to looking for an older, refurbished drive to
find one that runs at 1.5Gbps. This Hitachi model claims to run at
1.5Gbps by default. But that's a one line statement in a several
hundred page specification. I can't find any way in that document to
switch it to 3Gbps so I assume that the drive must configure itself to
the speed of the controller. All the more important that you get the
BlacX device that I pointed out that speaks both SATA and USB. It could
prove important later on when trying to move data off the backup drive
to a new computer if yours should completely fail and SATA version
compatibility turns out to be a problem.
Anyhow, here's the link
<http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=HDS725050KLA360-NDW-R&cat=HDD>
Geeks.com deals in a lot of refurbished gear. I haven't bought anything
from them lately but used to buy there fairly regularly. I consider
them a reliable supplier.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I use Acronis True Image 9.0 to clone my drives. It's old software
which runs fine on XP but later versions (when they changed to year
numbers for release numbers) seem to be somewhat buggy. You can still
find 9.0 but you'll likely pay new prices for it. I think now that I'd
try FOG <http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost/> It has good
reviews but, being a free software foundation project, who knows what
the user interface is like. It could be simple and easy to operate or
could also be a bear.
If you're cloning or backing up to SATA drives then the BlacX is a good
solution.
<<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153071&cm_re=blacx_docking_station-_-17-153-071-_-Product>>
Moose and I have them. They come in USB only or USB/eSATA combo
interfaces. I suggest the latter although it costs a bit more than USB
only.
Chuck Norcutt
On 6/8/2011 5:17 PM, Jim Nichols wrote:
> Hi Chuck,
>
> My C drive is the original 80GB drive, and is 6 yrs old. If I replace it,
> what is the currently preferred manufacturer, and what software would you
> use to clone the drive? Do you open up the case and connect the new drive
> to a cable and clone it that way, or do it over a USB connection?
>
> The last HD I bought was WD, and it seems to be fine. It is my external
> eSATA photo drive.
>
> Jim Nichols
> Tullahoma, TN USA
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chuck Norcutt"<chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Olympus Camera Discussion"<olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 3:16 PM
> Subject: Re: [OM] Strictly OT: System Crash
>
>
>> Sounds like an "ordinary" disk I/O error... one of the only 1 in 10**14
>> bits (or some such) that are eventually due to plague you. I suspect
>> (but don't know) that the flurry of disk I/O activity upon reboot was
>> probably the NTFS file system trying to figure out what was wrong with
>> itself and correct it if possible. You don't say what you did to
>> eventually recover but I suppose it doesn't matter if you're now up and
>> running.
>>
>> If your disk drive is about 3 years old or more I'd replace it on the
>> grounds of a cheap insurance policy. Get a new drive and clone the old
>> before it's too late. In general I have found that my drives last at
>> least 3 years and are generally technically obsoleted before they wear
>> out. But I did have a 6 month old 1TB Seagate drive (used as my primary
>> images storage) give up the ghost within the past two weeks or
>> therabouts. But it was kind enough to tell me it was failing, or, more
>> specifically, that it was likely to fail at some unknown time in the
>> future. Apparently the correctable read error rate had risen to an
>> unacceptable level and the S.M.A.R.T system intervened and advised me to
>> replace the drive. Had it been a RAID drive it would have automatically
>> rebuilt a replacement. First time I've ever seen a S.M.A.R.T. system
>> message and intervention.
>>
>> Chuck Norcutt
>>
>>
>> On 6/8/2011 2:51 PM, Jim Nichols wrote:
>>> Strictly OT, but I have a question. I was copying some files to a CD
>>> this morning, and, while the CD was being finalized, to enable it to
>>> be used by others, my Windows XP system crashed. A DOS screen came
>>> up that I have never seen before. I shut down and rebooted, but the
>>> HD just kept showing steady activity. I tried restore points back to
>>> a week earlier, but they all failed. Has anyone encountered anything
>>> like this?
>>>
>>> After many attempts at restarting, I am finally up and running again.
>>> I have created a new restore point, just in case.
>>>
>>> After almost two hours, I am a WRECK!
>>>
>>> Jim Nichols Tullahoma, TN USA
>> --
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>>
>>
>
>
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